The women's track team had already had an excellent first two days at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. But it wasn't until Saturday that Duke's improvement received center-stage recognition.
As freshman Kristen Sbarra ran the quarter-mile leg of the Championship of America, a distance medley relay featuring the top 15 teams in the country, public-address announcer Jack O'Reilly took notice. O'Reilly, the voice of the prestigious Penn Relays for several decades, proclaimed, "That's Duke, up with the elite group."
Those seven words summed up an outstanding weekend for the Blue Devils, who followed a school-best Atlantic Coast Championship meet a week earlier by breaking three school records at the Penn Relays.
In the Championship of America, senior Kim Voyticky ran a 3:24 opening split in the 1200-meter leg to hand off to Sbarra in fifth place. Voyticky had already run in two other relays, but she showed no sign of wear.
"She is definitely going to have the strength to run all her races at the ECAC and NCAA [Championship] meets," said men's track coach Norm Ogilvie, who also assists with the women's team.
Sbarra's second leg and freshman Megan Sullivan's anchor leg helped Duke finish in 11th place at 11:32.88, three seconds better than the previous school record. It was senior Colette Gurtler, though, who starred with an impressive half-mile leg in the final race of her Duke career.
"It was a brilliant career for Colette Gurtler," said women's track coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie. "It was a really fitting cap to her career. She chose to finish it in front of 40,000 people."
The Blue Devils also set school records in the 4x800-meter relay and the the sprint medley relay. The 4x800 team of Gurtler, Sullivan, Voyticky and junior Stephanie Thomas shattered the old school record (8:53.69) by nearly three seconds. The sprint medley team, with Thomas, Voyticky, junior Tara Cyre and sophomore Yvonne Ayew, finished Friday's race in 3:58.40, erasing the previous Duke record by four seconds.
In particular, Voyticky sparkled in the sprint medley relay, running the 800-meter anchor leg in 2:06.5. That topped the 2:07.2 split that Voyticky had run one day earlier, a leg that had pulled the Blue Devils into second place, less than two seconds behind heat champion St. Joseph's.
"Our goal was to get the school record and hopefully to medal," Norm Ogilvie said of the 4x800 team. "We certainly weren't expecting [to win] going in."
Two other Blue Devils, freshman Beth O'Donnell and junior Jeanie Minton, also performed well. O'Donnell ran the 5,000 meters in 17:01.98, giving herself the third-best time in Duke history. That marked an incredible improvement since September, when O'Donnell ran the 5,000 in 18:44.
"Normal improvement for a freshman might be 20 seconds," Norm Ogilvie said. "In the next three years, she'll be a national threat."
Minton cleared the bar at 5-5 in the high jump, tying for the sixth-best mark in the women's college Eastern competition. Her showing signified her return from injuries and helped her prepare for the heptathlon competition at next month's ECAC Championships.
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